The advent of light emitting diode (LED) based luminaires has provided sports arenas, stadiums, other entertainment facilities, and other commercial and industrial facilities the ability to achieve instant on-off capabilities, intelligent controls and adjustability while delivering excellent light quality, consistent light output, and improved energy efficiency. Because of this, users continue to seek improvements in LED lighting devices. For example, new and improved ways to direct light in multiple directions, and to provide luminaires with high light output in a compact package, are desired.
Generally, the illumination characteristics (such as intensity, color, flux of LED, or the like) of lighting devices may be controlled by a controller card. The controller card receives an input signal from a user interface and/or controller computing devices, via a predetermined protocol compatible with the controller card, and transmits it to an LED lighting device as an output signal, via a protocol compatible with the lighting device and/or the controller card. Hence, for controlling an LED lighting device, the correct input protocol compatible with the controller card and the output protocol compatible with the lighting device and/or the controller card must be known. Different control cards are thus required for controlling different types of lighting devices.
This document describes methods and systems for controlling an illumination device (such as an LED illumination device) directed to solving the issues described above, and/or other problems.